


Blood in the Grass

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Dissociation, Gen, Mild Blood, Spoilers for Episode 25 of Campaign 2 of Critical Role
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 16:16:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15100436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Molly wakes up from the most refreshing sleep he swears he’s ever had in his life, yawning and stretching, eyes squinting against the bright morning light. Later he’ll remember that, and think about how peaceful that sleep had been, how quiet his dreams. He should have been having nightmares about his friends being taken, should have woken up, heard something, done something.





	Blood in the Grass

Molly wakes up from the most refreshing sleep he swears he’s ever had in his life, yawning and stretching, eyes squinting against the bright morning light. Later he’ll remember that, and think about how peaceful that sleep had been, how quiet his dreams. He should have been having nightmares about his friends being taken, should have woken up, heard something, _done_ something. Instead he looks over to Yasha’s bedroll. She’s not in it, but that’s not terribly unusual. And all right, Jester’s bedroll is empty too, but she’s an early riser. The fact that she’s not nearby drawing something in her sketchbook for the Traveler like she usually does though when she wakes up, that’s out of the ordinary. And Fjord doesn’t seem to be around either. Molly has the thought for a second that maybe Fjord and Jester are off somewhere private “greeting the dawn” as it were, but that doesn’t feel right. Unease prickles up his spine, sharp as Frumpkin’s claws. They’re not by the cart, not anywhere that he can see.

Molly’s up and strapping on his swords before he even realizes what he’s doing. Maybe he’s overreacting. He hopes he is, that there is a perfectly good explantation for the three of them to be gone and that everything is fine and they’ll all have a good laugh about it over breakfast. He kneels down and shakes Beau awake roughly, instinctively dodging the blow that would have cracked him in the nose. “Beau, do you know where Fjord and Yasha and Jester are?”

“Huh?” Beau blinks groggily up at him. “No.” She blinks again, and squints. “It’s morning? Who took third watch? No one woke me.”

“Nott and I took first watch,” Caleb says, looking at Molly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Fjord and Yasha took second. I assumed maybe you and Jester were taking third?”

Molly shook his head. “No one woke me. And they’re not here, and they’re not by the cart.”

Nott’s already up, ears twitching, hand on her new crossbow. “Do you think something happened to them?”

“If something happened to them, why them and not us?” Beau asks as she crawls out of her bedroll and grabs her staff.

“I don’t know,” Molly says. “And all their things are still here. Whatever happened, it wasn’t a robbery.”

Nott is rummaging through Jester’s pink bag and pulls out her sketchbook. “Jester would have brought this with her if she was just going out for an early morning walk or something.”

“Okay,” Caleb says, strapping on his books. “We should spread out and look for clues. Trampled grass, turned up earth, that sort of thing.”

“Signs of a struggle,” Beau says flatly. “Just say what you mean. You think they’ve been taken. Or—”

Molly’s already walking carefully through the grass to the west of camp, picking the direction at random, eyes darting through the grass, tail lashing in anger and worry and yes, fear. When he sees the flattened grass it takes all of his will not to rush over, instead treading carefully, afraid to disturb anything that might be a valuable clue. Then he sees the blood, dark against the grass but still shining in the sun, and a high pitched whine starts up in his ears as he feels his fists clench. Whose blood is that? Fjord’s? Jester’s? Yasha’s? Molly hopes like hell that maybe Yasha took a slice out of one of their attackers but he can’t be sure.

“I found something!” Molly hears himself call, his own voice sounding distant and far away even though he is pretty sure he is shouting. He stares at the blood and doesn’t even hear the others come up next to him, flinching when Beau swears at what he’s found. He watches her move away from the blood.

“It looks like something was dragged away from here,” Beau says. “The grass is all flattened, looks like it could have been three bodies.”

“It smells like salt water over here,” Nott says, a green shape in Molly’s periphery. There’s a pause. “Tastes like it too.”

“Like when Fjord summons his falchion,” Beau says. “He must have tried to defend himself.” A rustle in the grass. “I think I found some cart tracks. We should pack up our things, follow the trail as well as we can before it gets cold.” There’s an undercurrent of anger in her voice, focused and cold.

Molly stares at the blood and puts out a shaking hand, the snake tattoo seeming to glare at him balefully. Now would be the perfect time for some new power over blood to manifest, something that would tell him whose it was, allow him to track whoever shed it, but no magic burns in his veins, no knowledge comes into his mind. He remembers Cree and her power over blood. He had felt like the bottom had dropped out of his world when she had called him Lucien, but he would gladly have her here and she could call him any name she liked if it meant they’d be able to find who did this.

“Anything?” Caleb asks softly from behind Molly. Molly doesn’t say anything, just stares at the blood in the grass. He should be doing something. He should have done something, heard something, maybe if he had been there whatever had happened wouldn’t have happened.

“Molly?” A hand on his shoulder, but Molly doesn’t turn. It’s Caleb who turns him around. “Molly? Are you with us?”

Blue eyes stare into Molly’s own and don’t look away, and the shock of that gets the words locked in his chest out past his tongue and his teeth. “She’s family, Caleb. More than family. And someone took her. She’s the strongest person I know and someone took her.” It’s not like he doesn’t care about Fjord and Jester, he does, but Yasha is _Yasha._

“I know,” Caleb says softly. “Here is what we are going to do, okay? We are going to collect some of this blood, in case we find someone who can use it to track down our friends. We are going to pack up our things, and follow these cart tracks. With any luck, we will find our friends, or at least find out who abducted them. And when we find those people…” Caleb’s face hardens and just for a second, Molly thinks he sees a glimpse of the man that Caleb had been, once upon a time. “When we find them, we will make them hurt, as fast or slow as you like. All right?”

Molly takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Maybe the thought of revenge shouldn’t be the thing that grounds him, but it does, and he’ll take what he can get if it’ll pull him back to the here and now. “All right.”

“Good,” Caleb says firmly, and the kiss he places on Molly’s forehead is firm too, with just a hint of gentleness.

Molly blinks in startled surprise as Caleb turns away from him and Molly automatically follows the wizard, restraining the urge to look back at the blood in the grass, whoever’s blood it is. He has to pack up his things, and Yasha’s as well. She’s always the one who finds him, but this time he swears that _he’s_ going to be the one to find her.

**Author's Note:**

> SO HOW ABOUT THAT EPISODE Y'ALL?
> 
> I'm angel-ascending over on Tumblr if you'd like to stop by and say hi!


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